[01.14] - Boy versus Girl

You know them; the jokes, the comments, the sweeping clichés: women drivers running up on the sidewalk on every other street; men tuning out all conversation segments save for those relating to food, beer, or sex. I, for one, am starting to wonder why, with all this gender angst, pairing remains mainstream. If we’re so different, and these differences bother us so, why still bother to get together?

Yes, I know that reason; some delicate soul once put it, the only reason men and women still get together is because the parts fit. Now, that’s an encouraging thought. Adult relationships; Lego for grownups.

I can accept that a certain amount of teasing is understandable. We can write off a percentage of the ‘men are so this’ and ‘all women do that’ chitchat to the same good-natured ribbing we enjoy in those ‘Ya know ya Bahamian when’ (insert string of comments relating to conch, bad driving, and frequency of Miami shopping trips).

But after a while, all these little negative jabs begin to take on a bitter ring. Particularly because we all know that, often, gender relations aren’t easy. They’ve never been.

We all know how women are supposed to have more rights now than ever before, and you’d think that equality might initiate a new, fantastic era in gender relations. No such luck; whether it’s comparing our differences through tedious planetary metaphors or simply spouting off about how unobservant men are and how emotional women get, the two sexes are as different—and, arguably, divided—as ever.

More than one guy has complained to me that he’s sick of femme-dominated shows where every male character is a bully or a lout, tired out from the Lifetime TV mentality where anybody with a dick is to be escaped from, feared, overcome.

On the girl side of things, it still vexes me that I can still be paid less than an equivalent male for the same job, am relegated to silence in many churches, and would be bookmarked forward, fresh, or slutty for levels of sexual openness commonly accepted (at least by some) in men.

I know this topic runs the risk of being hackneyed, tired, and milked so dry its withered teats are begging for peace in their twilight years. I know none of this is new. In fact, that makes me wonder: is the boys-against-girls mentality old enough to be thrown out?

Are the stereotypes, jabs, jokes, and tradition of harping on gender differences at all useful? Even more seriously, do gender differences—beyond the obvious physical variations we all know and love—really exist? And whose relationships do we help by dwelling on them?

-ja**ly